The éâThéâtre de Paris is a theatre located at 15, rue Blanche in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. It includes a second smaller venue, the Petit Théâtre de Paris.
History
The first theatre on the site was built by the Duke of Richelieu in 1730. Baron Ogny bought it in 1779 and renamed it Folie-Richelieu. Then during the First Empire it was directed by Fortunée Hamelin, a celebrated member of the Merveilleuses ("marvelous women") of the Directoire era.
In 1811, the Folie-Richelieu was transformed into a park, then demolished completely in 1851 in the redevelopment under Baron Haussmann. It became the site of the church of Sainte-Trinité de Paris with part of the site becoming a roller skating rink. In 1880, using plans by the architects Aimé Sauffroy and Ferdinand Grémailly, part of the rink became the Palace Théâtre and, after a further restoration in 1891 by Édouard Niermans, the Casino de Paris. After that, the rest of the rink, near the present rue Blanche, was demolished to make way for the Nouveau-Théâtre.
The first director of the Nouveau-Théâtre, was Aurélien Lugné-Poe, who, from 1888 to 1890, had been an actor in the Théâtre Libre company founded by André Antoine. After fulfilling four months of military service in early 1891, Lugné-Poe joined Paul Fort's eclectic Théâtre d'Art, which, from 1890 to 1892, presented poetry recitations, dramatic work by Marlowe, Shelley, and Hugo, as well as new plays by Rachilde, Paul Verlaine, and especially Maurice Maeterlinck (The Intruder, The Blind). When Fort left the enterprise at the start of 1893, Lugné-Poe assumed control, renamed it the Théâtre de l'Œuvre, and pursued aggressively Symbolist programming to rival Antoine's more Naturalistic offerings. Although Antoine had been the first to introduce Paris audiences to the modern drama of Henrik Ibsen (Ghosts, 1890; The Wild Duck, 1891), and Fort had produced The Lady from the Sea in 1892, starring Lugné-Poe as Wangel, it was Lugné-Poe who would make Ibsen his specialty in Paris theatre, premiering (and often starring in) nine Ibsen plays between 1893 and 1897.
Lugné-Poe at the Nouveau-Théâtre
Like Paul Fort before him, Lugné-Poe never had a permanent theatre to serve as his company's home stage for the entire run of its initial art-theatre experiment. The Théâtre de l'Œuvre debuted with Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande for a single matinée performance at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in May 1893, but the six engagements in his next season occurred at the distant Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, where he premiered Ibsen's Rosmersholm, An Enemy of the People, and The Master Builder, Gerhart Hauptmann's Lonely Lives, and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's Beyond Human Power, among others. For the May 1894 production of Henri Bataille and Robert d'Humières' Sleeping Beauty, however, he secured Nouveau-Théâtre's space for the first time. Though he concluded the season with August Strindberg's Creditors at the newly built Comédie-Parisienne (later known as Louis Jouvet's Théâtre de l'Athénée), he quickly assumed the directorship of Nouveau-Théâtre for most of the 1894-95 season. There he premiered Maeterlinck's adaptation of John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (Annabella), Beaubourg's The Mute Voice, Strindberg's The Father, Śūdraka's The Little Clay Cart, and Maeterlinck's Interieur, among others. While his May 1895 productions (including Ibsen's Little Eyolf) were staged at the Théâtre des Menus-Plaisirs, he returned to Nouveau-Théâtre to conclude the season with Ibsen's Brand.